Losing Marbles
by W.W.Allerdyce
Summary: No matter where he ran, he couldn't outrun him. He was just a boy, and he was a man. A monster. He was always there. Along with the mist- the fear- the pain- the terror. AU, OOC, Non-Magic... Or is it? Ambiguous. Non slash. One of my Sanity Flicks.


**Harry Potter Has Lost His Marbles**

…

**And Possibly His Coherence, Too.**

* * *

"Doctor? We have a new resident, Patient 606. He has no parents, and his guardians have admitted him, saying that they cannot shoulder his responsibility."

"A typical case, then." The Doctor has a rasping voice, as if he smokes too many cigarettes, and drinks too much alcohol.

"Yes, Doctor. His guardians also say that countless other hospitals have refused him residency, due to being incapable of meeting his needs. His guardians have stated that they desire no culpability for him, and have very blatantly indicated that they will accept any method used to _cure_ his illness."

"Oh? Including…?"

"Yes, Doctor. Including the employment of the mercy killing."

* * *

"_I'm sorry." He whispered, gazing down at his feet. "I really am. I didn't mean to…"_

_Her eyes were grave, and her expression was uncommonly serious. "I'm sorry too. But nevertheless, it doesn't change anything… James, once you've put him in the room; make sure you lock the door." She turned back to the files at her desk, and he realised, with a start of terror, that he was going back in there._

"_No! No, please! Please, I'll do anything, please, please, I don't want to go in there, no, please; you can't make me, please! Please! Don't! I can't! I don't want to! Please!" He threw himself out of the approaching butler's grasp, lunging forwards to grab her desk._

"_But I didn't want you to do what you did. Isn't it fair, that in return, you should have to do something you don't want to do?" She _still_ didn't look up, and her voice was even in tone, as if they were discussing the weather._

"_But it was an accident! I swear! Please don't make me go back in there!" He attempted to dart out of the butler's reach again, but he was too agitated and the other was too quick._

"_Don't worry," he heard his guardian's voice call out, even as he thrashed about in the butler's arms, even as he was steadily dragged towards the most dreaded place in the house. "Don't worry. You'll only be in there for a few days."_

_Then he was thrust into the white, bare room, and the equally stark door was slammed shut, the all too familiar sound of a bolt being drawn._

He screamed.

"_Hello dearest, I know you're here,_

_I know you never shed a single tear,_

_I know you're hiding, I can smell your fear,_

_Hello dearest, I've _found_ you here."_

_A ghosting hand, followed by an arm that looked paler than the purest snow, appeared in his vision, preceding naked shoulders that looked as if they were shards of shattered bone instead of smooth rounded ones like his own. Then came the head, as stark as the rest of its body, with no hair whatsoever, its bare skull protruding and distended like some mutated, horribly warped doll._

_Its face was terrifying, with black sockets for eyes and a shrunken, oddly disproportionate nose, a lipless leer framing sharp, jagged teeth, teeth that reminded him of craggy cliffs and sharks._

_Its thin, skeletal hand reached for him, and-_

He screamed.

"_Sshh, sshh, caro mío, caro mío, sshh, calma, calma, pequeñito, calma, bebe-"__ Smooth, gentle, such soft hands caressed his skin, trying to calm him down, stop his thrashing. "__Pequeñito, calma, sshh…"_

_He felt soothed, the unfamiliar, loving caresses working effectively. Felt like Mama…_

_He woke up._

_Thin, skeletal fingers with biting, broken _talons_ for nails rested on his arm, and he looked up, to see a mutated skull, black sockets for eyes, a crumpled, disproportionate nose, and sharp, jagged teeth with no lips…_

He screamed.

And kept on screaming.

Flailing wildly, he jolted up from his position on the floor, hoarse screams still pouring from his throat, glancing around desperately, longing for his comforting room with its sloping walls and windows with their wide open skies and giant bed with so many cushions and the books and the posters and the art and all of the things crowding his room, making him feel safe, protected, lessening the terrifying loneliness, the _emptiness_ that was always there, lodged from where his heart should have been to where his ribs ended.

But there wasn't anything…

- there wasn't even a bed.

Nor even a crack, or lines denoting where the door should have been.

Everywhere there was white, endless, pure white, stretching far back, covering the length of the whole room. There were no shadows, only white, making him feel as if he was trapped in an endless fog of white, no escape, nothing, not even any shadows to tell him where he was, what the time was, what was around him.

Nothing.

Just like in his dreams.

The ones that weren't nightmares, that is.

Hesitantly, it bubbled up from his gut, rising through the void in his ribcage, rising into his throat, gathering momentum like a cannon shot, and finally burst out of his mouth with such terror and pain and _desperation_ that…

Nothing happened.

But the screams kept on coming, getting louder and louder, higher and higher in pitch, until he wasn't screaming, he was keening, keening for the loss of his freedom, keening for his isolation, keening for his terror, keening for his inability to flee…

He couldn't stop. Tears poured down his cheeks, streamed like a river in spate, overflowed onto his shirt, his lap, the floor, and they kept on coming, just like his screams.

He had sunk from his wary stance into a crouch, and then onto his knees, and now he was bent over, his chest against his knees and his forehead was nearly touching the floor.

"Please…" he gasped out, "_please_… Please, no…"

And then, just when he though he could take no more, just as he thought he would burst from everything, implode like a can of carbonated drink, he saw shadows.

He jolted upright, a wild hope rising in him, and yes! _yes_! The impassive butler, with the face of marble, was standing there, arms crossed.

"The mistress says you have served your sentence." His voice was just like his expression, cold, completely devoid of life. "She wishes you to fulfil whatever needs that your body requires…"

Warily, he rose, trying to stifle the exuberant happiness and the sheer _relief_ that was nearly _bowling him over_ in his relief at being freed, finally, from his prison.

With faltering steps, like a two-year-old's, he gradually made his way over to the previously unseen doorway.

"H- how l- how long?" He croaked, unable to voice much more, his throat already making its protests against its previous treatment violently known to him.

"Three days."

_Three days. I'd been stuck in there for three days. _

_I didn't even get hungry._

Oh.

Bugger.

Shakily, he made his way up the stairs, trying not to curl over into his chest in an attempt to sate the burning hunger in his belly. _Gods… _ he moaned to himself. _Almost as bad as in there but _physical_… _

Unbidden, a flash of that place entered his mind.

_Maybe not… _

_I think that, in the future… I'm going to listen to her…_

There were consequences to disobeying her orders. He had no intention of experiencing those consequences again.

All he needed to focus on now was staying on his guardian's good side, and all would be okay, and he'd never ever have to ever go in the _room_ again.

He still couldn't sleep though.

And he still found it difficult to eat,

and to drink,

and to speak coherently.

Because of the nightmares.

Every time he shut his eyes, whether it was to blink or to sleep, he saw the _room_ with its endless white… And his eyes always shot open, because the very thought of the _room_ sent paroxysms of terror along his spine and lodging in the void in his chest, forming into a tight ball of iron.

He couldn't breathe- felt as if his inhalations were snatched away by the vacuum in his chest and the ball of fear lodged in the centre of it stopped him from exhaling what little air he had left.

He felt as if he was dying.

Slowly.

* * *

_And now he was running, running for his life, stumbling over the grass, sprinting into the trees, swerving round bushes, ducking under branches, never looking back, never never _never_, because to look back meant hesitation, and hesitation meant getting _caught_, meant going back there to become a plaything for his nightmares, his fears… _

_The iron ball in his chest was expanding, as if the heat in his skin was enlarging it as if it truly were metal…_

_And he leapt over a fallen tree, narrowly avoiding brambles,_

…_losing what little breath he had left,_

_he jolted to a stop, because now, surrounding him, on all sides,_

_the iron ball was a cage now, trapping his torso, he couldn't move-_

_were iron walls, and as he turned around-_

_and-_

* * *

"Doctor, Patient 606 is conscious, and appears to be struggling violently. Orders?"

The Doctor examines the screen, eying the figure thrashing about in his cell.

* * *

"_Are you sure the boy will be suitable?" It was a rasping voice that brought to mind fingernails across blackboards, or the scrape of broken glass over metal, or too much alcohol and too many cigarettes._

"_Yes, Mistress." He knew that voice. "I am sure. I have been testing him- he survived for three days without food or drink." It was his guardian's, but high, shrieking, cackling. Filled with insanity and glee and sadism. _

_He tentatively looked around the corner, and had to stumble back, muffling his mouth with his sleeve, trying not to scream. _

_It was that figure, with the mutated, enlarged skull, the empty, black sockets for eyes, the lipless leer with splintered, sharpened teeth, and bone shards for shoulders, with a body made of skin covering bone, the occasional string of muscle visible on top of the skin._

"_Soon, all will be perfect. The boy will be perfect."_

**_ He had to run._**

* * *

"Doctor? I repeat, Patient 606 is struggling violently, fully conscious. What are your orders?"

The Doctor stares at the screen. The patient is confined in a straitjacket, and has been heavily dosed with relaxants and sleeping pills. Yet he still struggles, still fights off the drugs, clings onto his hallucinations.

_There was evidently no hope for Patient 606._

"Prepare procedure for euthanasia of Patient 606."

* * *

Why was he here? What was going on? He was trapped- in what, he didn't know, it was confining, didn't let him move his arms, trapped him, he was trapped!

A familiar, dreaded tune began to chime in his ears, words that were not verbalised reverberated in his mind.

"_Hello dearest, I know you're here,_

_I know you've shed so many tears,_

_I know you're hiding, I can smell your fear,_

_Hello dearest, I've _found_ you here."_

It played again and again, the same tune, similar words. He remembered the mutated skull, the deformed face, the terrifying, warped body… The lipless sneer with splintered _canines_… The talons that were broken and honed… The black sockets for eyes…

"Procedure for euthanasia is prepared, Doctor. Would you like to set operation in motion?"

"Yes. Commence euthanasia."

* * *

What was going on?

Out of the corners of his eyes, he saw a white mist creeping up on him.

He began to scream, thrashing, violently bucking in attempt to escape. But it was pointless.

His vision was filled with white, like in the _room_, and he was trapped, and…

there…

was…

no…

escape…

* * *

As Patient 606 collapses, finally motionless, in his straitjacket, the Doctor of the Asylum for the Mentally Disadvantaged straightens, and allows a predatory grin to cross his face.

_Now, finally, all is perfect. The _boy_ is perfect._

The Doctor's eyes flash, changing from blue…

To black, blank sockets, in place of eyes.

* * *

**The title is different to the link. I know. I like variety.**

**Now. This was originally my English coursework (and still is) but I didn't get a satisfactory mark on it, and so I decided to post it up here and see how you lot like it. It's creepy. It makes my eyes widen and my muscles tense. But eh. Some people might not find it as disturbing as I do. Whatever. It's mine, bitches. I'm damn proud of it. **

**However, because this is fanfiction, I needed to make it seem... fanfiction-ish. I failed. I am aware of that. Just assume that it's all AU and that magic doesn't exist... _or does it?_ Maybe our darling patient is schizo. Maybe the Doctor is actually _someone else _who has infiltrated the Muggle World and fooled them all into thinking that Patient 606- his once nemesis, is a psycho schizo who is completely incurable. Maybe, the patient's relatives never liked him, shoved him in a cupboard for half his life and jumped at the chance to dump him in an asylum, unaware- or maybe not- that the Doctor is actually a subhuman mutant who has been trying to kill him for his entire life? **

**Who knows?**

**I'm actually seriously considering turning this into a fic, but for now it's staying as a lovely oneshot. It all depends on my hormone levels. **

**Oh, and if you squish your font or something equally perverted and warped and twisted that lets you do, then the format might be a little screwed up. Actually, the format is screwed up anyway, but you'll never know because you'll never read the actual thing... Unless I know you. But it needs to be like this, so shut up and stop your twitching.**

**I LOVE YOU!**

**xxx**

**Disclaimer: I actually do own this. There are no mentions of anything Potter-related in the fic, apart from the title. JKR can have that, if she really wants it. **


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